Dinner time
Bill simply grabbed himself a plate of snacks before finding himself a quiet room to continue his research. So far, the room had been invaluable. It had given him several books that mentioned horcruxes, including two incredibly rare ones that likely couldn't be found outside of old Pureblood collections.
He combed through them carefully, not wanting to miss anything. Most of the contents made his stomach turn. He thought he'd seen some evil things in Egypt, but some of the spells in these books were far worse. It was difficult work. He also had to translate some of the texts. He knew Egyptian hieroglyphics well enough, but the Ancient Greek book gave him a little more trouble. According to the texts Herpo the Foul created the first recorded horcrux, and then his notes were stolen by his apprentice, who destroyed the Horcrux, killed Herpo, and fled to Egypt.
Eventually, he found the spell he'd been looking for. As he'd thought, it was a spell to transfer a horcrux to another container, however the new container had to be prepared through the proper ritual. Which was some pretty dark magic. Non magical objects were the hardest to prepare, while powerful, magical items were already primed to host a soul. The likelihood of getting hold on an object that had been prepared to contain a horcrux, but never used, was infinitesimal. It wasn't necessarily difficult to do so, but the magic required to allow an inanimate object to hold a portion of one's soul left Bill feeling dirty. Unless they wanted to use, and then destroy, a powerful magical artefact, it was their only option.
Still, it was a place to start. If he could tweak the spell to work on a human horcrux, then at least they would have the start of a plan.
Everyone but Bill sat around the table in the dining room area, eating the delicious stew Molly had made. The Weasleys were more subdued than normal with the mentions of Bilius still fresh in their minds.
Harry sat with Luna, deciding to spend a bit more time with the girl who was obviously here for a reason, even if that reason wasn't quite clear. She was full of strange ideas about magical creatures Harry had never heard of before, and wondered privately whether they were even real, but he enjoyed listening to her talk about them none the less. She had some interesting stories about holidays she'd been on with her father, looking for these creatures. As someone who'd never really travelled anywhere, he liked listening to her describe places like Sweden, Austria and even Australia.
As they finished eating, Moody signalled to Harry who bade goodbye to Luna, once she'd finished her latest story, and made his way to what had become the training room.
As soon as he walked in, he had to duck a jet of red light aimed at his head. He flung up a shield just in time to deflect the next attack and used the spare second to look around. He couldn't see Moody anywhere, so he crouched down, with his back to the wall, and waited. He didn't have to wait long. From his left came a volley of spells, only a third of which Harry thought he might recognise. Knowing his shield wouldn't hold long against such an onslaught, he rolled to the side, sprang up to his feet and began casting his own volley of spells back in the direction the attack had originated.
Desperately he tried to think of a way to find out where Moody would be. Nothing came to mind, and he was distracted by another attack from a completely different direction.
Eventually, his shield shattered, and he was hit with a stunner, and everything went black. When he came too, Moody was standing over him. Harry hauled himself to his feet, groaning.
"Not bad. You lasted a decent length of time, but your attack needs to be better. You're a sitting duck if you just rely on defence."
"I couldn't think of a way to get you to reveal yourself," Harry admitted. Moody nodded. He then proceeded to teach Harry, Glacius, Depulso, and finite incantatem. The first two Harry had little trouble with, though he struggled to get the direction he wanted on the banishing charm. However, he made up for his lack of finesse with power, accidentally throwing Mad-Eye hard into the wall on one go. Harry had apologised profusely, healing up the cut on the back of his head, but Moody had waved this away, being proud of the power behind his spell. Though he did get Harry to practise on the training dummies for a bit after that.
With finite incantatem, Moody disillusioned himself and had Harry try to remove his spell, which he struggled the most with. The best he could get was making Moody's spell flicker ever so slightly, and he had to be looking in exactly the right direction to even notice.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, lad," Moody told him when they wrapped up an hour later, with Harry still unable to complete the spell. "You have the power; you just need the focus. You're a natural and pick up new spells quicker than most Aurors I've trained. That doesn't mean you'll get everything on the first go." Harry nodded, feeling a surge of pride in himself. Moody wasn't all that big on praise, so when he gave it out, he definitely meant it.
As always, Harry was exhausted by the time he finished with Moody, training having gone on for almost three hours, and having learnt three new spells in that time. He made his way to the room he shared with Remus. To his surprise, he found Andromeda in there with Remus and Sirius.
"Hi," he greeted as he practically fell onto the nearest couch.
"How was training?" Sirius asked.
"Great. Tiring. Moody's relentless," Harry told him. Sirius laughed.
"Yeah. But you couldn't ask for a better teacher." Harry nodded in agreement.
"What are you three up to?"
"We wanted to speak with you. I meant to bring it up earlier, but with some of the, er, revelations, in these books it slipped my mind," Remus told him. He paused, looking awkward. "Would you mind if Andromeda checked your memories?"
"For what?" Harry frowned.
"For memories that might be missing, or signs of memory loss. Lockhart was a self-proclaimed expert at memory charms, and Remus is concerned about his…inappropriateness," Andromeda explained delicately. Harry's frown deepened before he understood her meaning and yelped in disgust.
"Oh, yuck. You don't think….no way…"
"It's entirely possible nothing happened, likely even. But even the slightest possibility isn't one that should be ignored," Sirius said quietly. Harry grimaced.
"With their permission, Andromeda is going to check all of the other students here as well, but it's you he was most…touchy, with," stated Remus with an awkward grimace. Harry shuddered.
"Alright. I guess. Just…let's get it over with." Andromeda nodded and came to sit beside him.
"Now, you just need to relax while I perform Legilimency. Do no attempt to throw me out or stop me entering as we do in occlumency practise," she advised. Harry nodded and took a deep breath. Then he felt the now familiar pressure on his mind. He tried to relax, allowing Andromeda to enter unopposed. It wasn't painful, exactly, but it was definitely odd. Like his mind was too full, bursting at the seams.
It felt like it lasted forever, fragments of memories from his second year flashed before him. All of his interactions with Lockhart examined.
Eventually, the presence withdrew, and Harry gasped when he was finally alone in his mind once more. His head was pounding, and he saw double for several seconds. Andromeda handed him a potion which he took without question. His vision cleared and his headache lessened. Harry sighed with relief.
"I found no evidence of memory alteration. I don't believe Lockhart ever attempted to modify his memories," Andromeda informed them, and they all sighed in relief at the news. Harry sagged against the back of the couch, more exhausted than ever after that. Andromeda handed him the second dose of potion for his eyes which he downed immediately, before making his way to his bedroom.
Once he'd finished his nightly ablutions, he collapsed onto the bed. After a few moments, he heard someone knock on the door. He mumbled for them to come in. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then the door opened slowly.
"You asleep, pup?" Sirius' voice was quiet, and Harry made a noise of disagreement which was muffled by the pillow. He felt the bed dip as his godfather sat on the side. A hand gently ruffled his hair and then removed his glasses which he'd forgotten to take off. "You doing ok?"
"Mmmhmm."
"Alright. I'll leave you to sleep. Sweet dreams, kiddo." With a last ruffle of his hair, Sirius stood up and left the room. Harry fell asleep almost immediately.
Sirius went back to the living room area. "He's out like a light," he announced.
"It's not surprising, Legilimency drains you, and that's without a training session with Mad-Eye Moody on top of it," Andromeda stated. Sirius nodded, retaking his seat next to Remus.
"He's a tough boy," Remus assured him, seeing the worried look on Sirius' face. Sirius didn't voice his fears about the news Bill had given them the night before. He trusted Andromeda, but that was Harry's news to share or not. Though he wasn't sure what his cousin would be able to do with the news anyway.
"Sirius, I, I would like to apologize for believing the worst of you," Andromeda stated quietly. He felt Remus stiffen beside him.
"It's fine, Andi. We were hardly close. You didn't have much reason to believe I wouldn't fall in with the rest of the family," he told her with a sigh. "And you've been making up for it, helping me and Harry. Fixing us both up." Next to him, Remus shifted uncomfortably, probably hurt by his easy acceptance of Andromeda's apology. And he didn't know how to explain that it was easy to forgive his cousin, because it wasn't as close. As personal. He barely knew his cousin. They'd interacted a few times at family parties before she's run away with Ted, but that was it. She had graduated Hogwarts just before he'd started and had never witnessed the friendship between himself and James. Remus had lived it. But they'd all lived with the friendship between themselves and the rat too.
Although, Sirius had been far more surprised that the rat had had the brains to trick him, than him being a traitor. It had suddenly all just made sense that Peter betrayed them. It fit. And part of him wondered if Remus had felt that way about him, or if he'd always thought some part of the story was missing. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
He was pulled from his thoughts by Andromeda once more. She had risen and invited Tonks and her husband into the room. The five of them spent a while chatting and having a good laugh. Ted had a great sense of humour, as did Tonks. They made him forget, just for a little while. He felt normal. Happy, even.
Eventually, the three of them left, with promises to repeat the event, when Harry was also able to join them. Silence reigned after that. The slightly awkward tension that had constantly been between the two of them was back and Sirius rubbed the back of his neck. Merlin, he hated it. Hated that he was unable to just let it go. He loved Remus, and that made it so much worse. His head had already forgiven his friend, but his heart, that wasn't quite with the program. It was hurt, scarred and desperate to protect itself.
"How about a game of exploding snap?" He suggested suddenly. Remus looked bemused by the suddenness of it but agreed easily enough. The room provided a pack of cards and they set about playing. Sirius remembered to set up a silencing charm so they wouldn't disturb Harry, though he suspected it would take something considerable to wake his godson at the moment.
Sirius won the first round and Remus tended to his singed eyebrows, grimacing. Sirius laughed and cast a hair growth charm that caused his eyebrows to grow rapidly down his face. Remus spluttered and fumbled around trying to find his wand to fix it, but his eyebrows had grown down to his nose in only a few seconds, almost blinding him. Sirius fell about laughing at the sight and Remus began cursing.
Eventually, Sirius took pity on his friend and handed him his wand, which he'd taken, and Remus reversed the hex. They didn't end up playing much more, busy jinxing each other instead until they were both on the floor in stitches. Although, in Remus' case that might have been due to the tickling charm. Which Sirius eventually reversed. They both leant against the couch, trying to catch their breath.
Sirius slumped sideways, leaning against Remus, his head on his shoulder. This had reminded him of better days, sitting in the Gryffindor common room. Usually, it was him and James getting into playful fights during a game. Remus generally preferred chess, although he'd join in with exploding snap occasionally. They'd also played rune dominos, which seemed to have fallen out of favour by the time they finished Hogwarts. Not enough people took Ancient Runes and learnt to play. He, James and Remus had all taken it, the rat was the only one who never bothered to learn so it was the one game that wasn't tainted by him. He made a note to introduce Harry to the game, it would be a great way to help him learn Ancient Runes, which he'd expressed an interest in.
"You haven't fallen asleep, have you? I'm not carrying you to bed," Remus said teasingly. Sirius snorted.
"Not yet, but you might have to soon." The sentiment was added to as he yawned widely. He felt more than heard the low chuckle in response and he shuddered.
"Are you cold?" Remus asked, concern in his voice. He knew Sirius was frequently cold after being in Azkaban for so long.
"Na. You're like a personal furnace," Sirius told him. Remus shifted slightly and tentatively wrapped an arm properly around his shoulders. Sirius hummed happily. It felt like being wrapped in a blanket. His eyes slipped closed as he basked in being warm, comfortable, content. It felt so right sitting like this with Remus. He never wanted to move.
Remus stared down at the head on his shoulder, hardly daring to breathe. The mixed signals were making his head spin. One moment the awkward tension was suffocating and the next it was as if those twelve, horrible years had never happened. He knew it wasn't Sirius' fault, that didn't make it any less confusing. Or painful. Constantly getting his hopes up, getting a taste of what his future could be like with his best friend at his side and then it was snuffed out. Only to happen again and again.
He sighed to himself but Sirius, of course, noticed and asked if he was ok. "Yeah, just thinking about the rest of this book," he lied. Either Sirius didn't notice, or he let the lie go, just sighing himself.
"It's going to suck."
"Yeah. But hopefully the future books will tell us where Peter will be so we can find him and clear your name. Amelia will already be working on it and it we catch the rat it will be irrefutable proof." Sirius made a noise of assent but said nothing.
They sat in silence for a while further, neither of them moving until the fire grew low. Eventually Sirius sat up, yawning and stretching.
"I'm gonna head to bed before I do fall asleep here," he said. "Good night, Moony."
"Night, Padfoot," he replied quietly. He watched as Sirius dragged himself towards his bedroom, but he remained a while longer, thinking over his own actions in the book. His own failures.
After a while he finally got to his feet and made his way to his own bedroom. He fell onto the bed, fully dressed and stared up at the ceiling. Sleep was a long time coming.
The professors gathered together in one sitting room. They discussed the events so far and then how they could make the following year safer.
"Precautions have been put into place," Dumbledore assured them.
"Uh, huh. And more will be needed. That Potter Luck is strong stuff," Minerva said grimly. The other heads of house nodded in agreement.
"Regardless, do you mean to tell me, you allowed Miss Granger the use of a time turner to attend extra lessons that year?" Severus glared at both Dumbledore and Minerva.
"It was an experiment," Minerva sighed. "The Department of Mysteries wanted a report on the effects of repeated use of a time turner. Miss Granger signed up for all the subjects and it was agreed both goals could be achieved at once as it was vouched for that she was responsible enough to handle it. Only if Miss Granger received the strictest supervision."
"And I'm sure she did not," Severus drawled. Minerva flushed slightly. "And you thought a thirteen-year-old was the best recipient of this experiment? Not a seventh year, who have finished their development, both physical and magical?"
"I kept as close an eye on her as I could."
"Which is hardly that close at all, judging by the rest of your behaviour in these books."
"You're hardly one to talk about failing students, Severus," Pomona pointed out mildly. "Or shall we revisit your behaviour in Mr. Potter's classes?" The potions master scowled but said nothing.
They continued their discussion, but reached very few conclusions, other than hoping the next book would shed some light on what was to come and how they could prevent it.
Hermione spent the evening studying. The room had so many books in, she barely knew where to start. The room had provided her with a specific library room where she knew it was unlikely she'd be disturbed outside the specified lesson times. It shocked her, then, when George Weasley came strolling into the room like he did so every day.
"What are you doing in here?" She asked in surprise.
"Looking for a book," he grinned. She flushed and his grin widened. He moved over to the potions section and began scanning the shelves.
"Hoping to impress Snape? Or cause trouble?" She asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
"Both," George winked. He found his book and thumbed through it quickly. "Ah, here it is. Well, I best get back to dear old Freddie. He can't cope without me, you see." He gave her another wink and she rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"Naturally, she replied sarcastically.
"You want to come and see some of our stuff? See how it's done?" he offered. Hermione was taken aback but found herself agreeing. While she had no patience for pranks, she was interested in how the twins made their own.
He led her to their room where Fred was scribbling on a piece of parchment at a desk. He looked up when they both arrived and raised his eyebrows.
"Do what do we owe the pleasure of a visit?" He asked, smirking at George slightly.
"George invited me to see what you guys do," she explained.
"Did he, indeed? Well, fair enough then. George will give you a tour, I'm almost done with this design." George nodded and began showing Hermione around. They had various cauldrons set up, bubbling away.
"These are under stasis," he explained, pointing at one bench with three cauldrons on. "I'm good, but even I can only brew two at once," he smirked proudly. Looking over at the other two cauldrons that were being used, she stared up at him, shocked.
"Are those two different potions? At once?"
"Yeah. I invented that one, and the second one is a swelling solution. Both are pretty easy, and their simmering times work well to allow me to work on both at the same time."
"That's very impressive."
"Praise? From the brilliantly clever Hermione Granger? I'm flattered."
"Git," she muttered, feeling her face getting warm. He chuckled; a low sound that made her feel warm in a completely different way. She glared at him to hide her reaction but that just made him chuckle more.
"Come on. I'll show you our fake wand designs." He led her over to a different bench from where Fred was working. It was also strewn with parchments.
"Have you done all of this since getting here?"
"Yeah. A lot of it is from memory, we had most of it already done. But we've added a few things and got the potions up and running."
"Wow. This is…well, it's incredible. You designed all of these things yourselves?"
"Yep," he grinned proudly. "We currently have fake wands in production, ton-tongue toffees about to be ready for their first tests and canary creams, although those will need a little bit longer to be ready. All of our own invention."
"How do you have time to make all of this stuff?"
"We don't really bother with classwork," he shrugged. She stared at him.
"But if you don't bother with classwork, how do you learn the things you need to know?" She wondered. He laughed.
"We study what we need. School gives you a broad education, we want a bit more of a specific one. We each have our specialities, I focus on Potions, as you can tell, as well as Arithmancy and Herbology. Fred is better at Transfiguration, Defence and Charms. He also likes Ancient Runes, but that's more of a hobby. We don't often use runes for our stuff.
"And what's your hobby?" Hermione wondered. George stared at her, mouth slightly open as if surprised. "What?" She asked, feeling a little self-conscious.
"Nobody's ever asked me that before," he admitted quietly.
"What?"
"Fred always knew, there was no need for him to ask. Nobody else ever bothered. Everyone just assumed my hobbies are pranks and Quidditch. And they are. But nobody ever asked if there was anything else."
"That's…" Hermione couldn't find the words.
"It's Astronomy, by the way," he told her softly. "It comes in handy for Potions and Herbology, but sometimes, when it all gets a bit much, I like just lying outside and staring at the stars. Sometimes I like to just fly up to the roof of the castle for some peace and quiet."
"George Weasley, wanting peace and quiet. Who knew?" She teased. He offered her a lopsided grin that showed a dimple on his left cheek.
"Don't be telling anyone. I have a reputation to maintain."
"Your secret is safe with me," she promised.
He continued showing her some of their designs, plans for the future and she was awed. No matter how much they seemingly skived off schoolwork, they were highly intelligent. Much more so than she had ever given them credit for.
Eventually she bade them goodnight as it grew quite late. She was honestly surprised at how much time had gone past.
"Brave of you, showing Miss Teacher's Pet all of our stuff," Fred said to his brother once Hermione was gone. "We'll be lucky if she doesn't tell all the teachers about what we're doing here."
"She wouldn't do that," George protested.
"Have we been reading about the same Granger?"
"Yes, we have. And you'll notice she doesn't often actually go and tell a teacher about what's going on. She prefers to scold people herself," George pointed out. "And she didn't even scold us. She was impressed." Fred rolled his eyes.
"Alright. Impress your girl."
"She isn't my girl," George shot back. Fred just smirked and it was George's turn to roll his eyes. The duo finished up their projects without further conversation and soon headed to bed.
The following morning, breakfast was noisy affair as most people were feeling well rested and reasonably positive about the day. They hoped that Sirius was the most dangerous thing in the book, as they clearly didn't have to worry about him actually harming Harry. Those who knew better, knew that everyone had survived, somehow. It was unlikely to be entirely pleasant, but they figured it could hardly be worse than Harry being bitten by a basilisk in the last one.
Lessons resumed that morning. Harry spent the morning with Mad-Eye once more, going over detection charms for poisons in food and drink. Hermione joined him while Ron and the others all had Muggle-Studies. These spells he struggled with a little more and the former Auror gave them both bracelets to wear that had detection charms imbued in them until they could master the spells themselves. They were worried this signalled his intention to try and poison them while they were in the room and made a mental note to check everything they ate or drank.
After that, they both had a Magical Culture lesson. Sirius took Harry aside for this instead of studying with Hermione under Andromeda's tutelage. He spoke to Harry about the Ancient and Noble families and what it would mean to be Lord Potter. He didn't understand most of it, and it was quite overwhelming to be a lord of all things, but he appreciated his godfather's efforts.
Finally, he spent some more time with Bill going over Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. He preferred Arithmancy but wanted to gain at least a basic understanding of them both. He suspected they would have enough time for him to do that and still focus on Arithmancy enough to catch up on the third-year curriculum.
By the time it was lunch, his head was swimming with new information. He sat down between Sirius and Fred, already feeling exhausted.
"You doing ok?" Fred asked him, looking concerned.
"Fine. Just…it's a lot."
"Yeah. I'm not surprised. These last few days, has it even been a week? Have been a bit crazy," Fred agreed.
"What have you been up to this morning?" Harry asked.
"We had advanced Healing with Andromeda first thing. We wanted some extra help given all the inventing we do. Then we had some free time, so I finished off the design for what we call Puking Pastilles. Now we need to make them. We just finished up Defence with Remus."
"Sounds like fun."
"Could be worse," Fred grinned.
Once everyone had finished eating, they moved back to the reading room. Everyone retook their usual positions and Amelia picked up the book and found the correct page.